A
new era has begun in the Curriculum Collection at the Library
that will benefit Sacramento State students and the community.

The K-12 Curriculum Collection will greatly expand its educational
works now that it has been designated as a Learning Resource
Display Center by the California Department of Education.
This means that every year Sacramento State’s library
will receive free copies of all K-8 instructional materials
the state adopts on specific subjects. It will receive a complete
collection of one subject per year until all subjects have
been rotated through and the cycle begins again.

In
California, learning materials for kindergarten to eighth
grade go through a state-level education adoption process
that evaluates materials against subject content standards.
This process occurs once every seven years for each “core”
subject. When textbooks are finally adopted they are used
in elementary classrooms.

Roz Van Auker, a Sacramento State education librarian and
director of the Learning Resource Display Center, says that
to have these materials on campus is an asset to students.
“We are training so many teachers. This is a resource
that future teachers really need, and not just for the books.
We also receive CDs and videos.”

The library has always bought K-12 curriculum materials for
teacher training but limited funding has kept the library
from being able to expand the collection to its full potential.
Van Auker says that because of the budget, she was always
trying to get publishers to donate books to the curriculum
collection. And there was also the issue of not picking the
most recent or best textbook since the adoption process for
textbooks takes several years. “As a Learning Resource
Display Center we are now not only getting the best materials
but also the most timely,” says Van Auker.

Knowing the materials that are currently being used in the
classrooms is important to student teachers because they get
a sense of the textbook selection process, and they get to
observe what materials teachers are currently using, Van Auker
says.

The first subject matter set the new center received this
year was health and next year the library will receive history/social
studies. Van Auker believes that having a Learning Resource
Display Center in the library will also strengthen ties in
the community.

“Sac State sends student teachers into surrounding communities,”
Van Auker says. “While they are being mentored by those
already in the field they will be able to share this resource
with their new colleagues.”

Additionally,
because the Sacramento State library is open longer hours
than other libraries in the area, this is a resource that
can be helpful to community members who have been helpful
to our students, Van Auker says.

“In a sense, it is a way that we get to give back to
the community for their contributions to our future teachers.”